What would you have done differently in the process?

[New_Frequency]

The forum tends to drop off in traffic after application season is finished, so while you're all here, I thought I'd ask what you would have done differently. As someone about to start the application process with no real sources of help beyond faculty, I'd love to hear your advice!

[Dwar]

Ditch the undergrad mentality. When i applied the first time I went into it with a very undergrad idea about things. For example, I applied to schools that I’d always wanted to go to for undergrad, wrote my SOP as if it was an undergrad admissions essay, and just went about the whole thing as if I was in high school. The biggest piece of advice I can offer is to ditch that mentality and look at it from a graduate POV.

[horololo]

If you're a theory applicant, I would recommend you to start your writing sample ASAP and put maximum effort to it. I'm not sure about other subfields because some people say that the admission committees do not read writing samples. At the same time, for theory applicants, I heard that they DO read the writing samples. In other departments such as English literature or philosophy, they put on much weight on the writing samples, or so have I been told. They often work on it for a full year! I think it was the weakest part in my application.

For SOP, I would start as early as possible like in January or something and individualize it for each top choice program. Research fit matters perhaps the most, and I would try to write it according to each program's POI's research interests and stuffs. Of course, this is time consuming, so you might want to do this for your top choice programs only...

Also, to learn about each POI's research interests, don't just read the description on the department website. Try to read some of their works such as books, book chapters, or articles. I hadn't known that my research fit aligns VERY well with the program I got an offer from before interview because I only looked into the profiles on the department website! It was as if I wrote my SOP after reading his work (which is not the case of course, and that's why it was even more surprising and amazing to me).

[Artifex_Archer]

7 hours ago, Dwar said:

... The biggest piece of advice I can offer is to ditch that mentality and look at it from a graduate POV.

This. Grad school apps are essentially job applications, whereas undergrad apps most assuredly are not. A good way to think of your grad school SoP is—among other things—as a cover letter. You are applying to work with/for your POIs and department. 

[needanoffersobad]

Read the top journals in your field from time to time. University library accesses all the journal articles.  If you are free, just randomly click on one and read the latest published articles on it. Try to browse 3 to 5 of them every week. So you will get a sense what people are working on now. And more importantly, you will know how to properly state a research idea, especially if you are still an undergrad. You don’t want to sound unprofessional in the SoP.        
 

Actively talk to faculty. Not the school you apply to but the school you are in right now, either BA or MA. They will be extremely helpful. 
 

Third, don’t do everything at the same time. I can’t focus on GRE and SOP at the same time. Especially for international applicants, get the tests done the summer before the application season. And focus on sop and writing sample in the fall. 

[ihatedecisions]

I really underestimated time I would need for GRE, SOP and writing sample. So I support previous commentators in that I would get done with GRE way earlier (preferybly, before doing other parts of application) if I had another go. I would also wish I had at least a couple more months to write SOP in terms of developing research angle, which would ideally involve being very fluent in the state of art research. 

 

[Artifex_Archer]

Not something I would have done differently, per se, since I had to do it, but: WRITE AND EDIT. Get a gig doing so if at all possible. I've been very fortunate in that my job involves a lot of reading, writing and editing [I mean, essentially, that is my job. I work at a think tank and for a short time before that I was a writer at a PR firm]. The best way to become a better, more thoughtful writer—and the best way to desensitize yourself to the chagrin of reading/editing your own bad writing, which will be bad from time to time, or at least mine is—is to write. And edit. And read other academics' work.

Another little tip: right before you write/tailor your SoP for School X, re-read your School X POIs' work. You'll organically pick up on one or two of their stylistic mannerisms, without sacrificing your own or, obviously, plagiarizing. Generally, these sorts of tonal similarities can convey compatibility.

This can also help you to determine what level of rhetorical flourishes the faculty at a given school are/aren't okay with when it comes to apps. SoPs are typically NOT the place to worry about style or sounding poetic, aside from maybe the final paragraph—focus on substance, and style will follow. That said, if you work in a field that occasionally necessitates using some $500 words, reading your POIs' work can give you a clue as to how much jargon/loquaciousness they'll tolerate, and how to trim away the rest.

Edited February 16, 2020 by Artifex_Archer